On Top
by madame.alexandra
Summary: There was a moment that finally pushed Hollis Mann over the edge, and it had everything to do with what he'd never said about Jenny Shepard - that she knew he felt.


_a/n: i've never written from Hollis' point of view before, which is odd considering how much jibbs i cover. anyway; here you go, a version of the final straw that pushed Hollis out. _

* * *

She supposed she shouldn't be particularly offended; his front door was perpetually devoid of a lock, and women and men alike walked in unannounced at all hours of the day—but this woman, specifically, bothered her, and it was an hour that one could consider _indecent_ for platonic visits—and she was wary, simply wary, because of all that had happened, and because of all that hadn't been said.

She ventured up out of the basement quietly, when he didn't come back down—he'd gone up when he heard the heels, and she'd heard a muffled, tense exchange—which pleased her, she admitted—and then the creaking of the floors as they moved; she had her suspicions, and she wasn't going to relinquish her ground by staying out of sight.

This was her territory, and she meant to make that abundantly clear.

She pushed stray blonde hairs out of her face, and stepped into the open living room, eyes neutral, lips pursed—he was in the kitchen with her—yes, it was _her_, though she hadn't really had a doubt; Ziva David didn't wear heels, and Abby Sciuto didn't _click_ across the floors, she _scampered_.

She turned her head in time to see the Director slap his hand away, press a lumpy washcloth to her face. She stepped past him, heading for the couch, and paused, sparing a brief look of surprise for the other woman. The look disappeared, and she walked on, dropping down on the sofa near the flickering fire.

"If I'd known you had company, I would have gone to DiNozzo," she remarked – she made it subtly clear that she felt no remorse for interrupting his evening, and Hollis Mann responded with a thin smile.

The Colonel thought it idiotic that the Director would assume a man with a girlfriend would be spending his nights sans company, but she made no comment on it. With the additional remark about DiNozzo, Shepard managed to throw a dig at both the blonde and Gibbs, and that was admirable in its own way.

Gibbs came out of the kitchen, a tight look on his face. He seemed uncomfortable, and pissed, and marginally confused – Hollis didn't blame him. He nearly tripped over her getting past with a first aid kit in his hands, and his jaw twitched.

"He wouldn't have let you in," he pointed out shortly, a sharp dig right back at her, and the blonde smiled a little more genuinely—ah, they were all still smarting over Madame Director's antics with the amphibian.

The redhead smiled tightly, and removed the cloth from her forehead. Blood oozed from her temple, and Hollis's smile faded. She stepped forward, putting a hand on her hip. Gibbs gestured for the Director to move, and almost without seeing him, she intuitively leaned back and let him lean over her, examining the wound.

"My apologies for interrupting your evening, Colonel."

"It looks urgent," Hollis responded mildly.

"Occupational hazard."

Hollis doubted it, somehow.

"Jen," growled Gibbs.

_Jesus_, he couldn't even manage to call her Shepard or Director for Hollis's sake.

She snorted, and winced and slapped at his hand when his touch hurt her. He gave her a stiff look, and she put a hand on the sofa next to her, squeezing.

"That needs stitches," Hollis remarked.

Neither of them said anything—it was like she wasn't in the room.

"How bad, Jen?" Gibbs muttered.

"Not as bad as Paris," she said grimly.

"Not dead, then," Gibbs noted.

He nodded, and then gently touched her wound.

"The pain?"

"Worse than London, not as bad as Prague," was the mystic answer.

Hollis clenched her jaw, frustrated. One would think that she, standing in his house, in his t-shirt and in his boxers, her hair tangled and sweaty from his affections, would have the upper hand, the high ground – but she felt small, and ignored, when the redhead was in the room.

"You shoot him?"

"Nicked his kneecap," the Director mumbled. "Warning shot."

"This?" Gibbs asked, touching the wound on her hairline.

She winced.

"Golf club," she murmured.

He smirked a dull, ironic smirk, and Hollis saw her hand move to his knee and pinch him, hard. He ignored it, touching the back of her head and tilting her forward. The redhead winced, grit her teeth, and Hollis wondered what they were talking about – what had happened to her.

"Another run in with an arms dealer?" she ventured quietly.

She could roll with the punches.

Sharp green eyes flicked up to her.

"Frogs don't play golf," came the coy answer.

"That doctor guy do this?" Gibbs grunted.

"Todd?" the Director laughed curtly. "I haven't seen him in months," she said, and a shadow crossed her face.

Hollis stepped forward, resting her hands on the back of a chair; she may be out of the bubble that seemed to surround them, but she refused to leave them alone—what was she doing here, so late at night; why did she think she had the right? She'd already had him, and kicked him to the curb.

And did she think those blonde streaks in her hair would change that?

"What's the damage?"

"His kneecap. My skull."

"You concussed?"

"Maybe. Men don't usually hit me with golf clubs."

Hollis cocked her head sharply.

"If you've been domestically assaulted, you need to report it," she advised sharply.

She was met with narrow green eyes again.

"Not in the cards."

"You forget I'm in law enforcement, too, Director—"

"No, I don't," interrupted the redhead. "I remember very clearly. You have a particular enjoyment for the _top_ position." The Director smiled bitterly. "Any more incursions on my part will lose me my job."

"I'll take care of it," Gibbs said, and Hollis turned to him, incredulous.

"What did she do, kill the bastard?"

"Not for lack of trying."

Hollis stared at her, and the redhead lifted her hand; Hollis noticed it trembled, though Shepard didn't look scared, or shaken at all—her hand just shook, as if it couldn't help itself; as if it were ill.

The Director licked her lips. She turned her head. She said something under her breath to Gibbs.

"Effin' _Christ_, Jen," he growled. And then: "You outta your goddamn mind?"

"Jethro," Hollis said, surprising herself—he never swore like a, a—Marine, at least, she'd never heard him.

"I tend to bring that out in him," the Director remarked.

Shots fired.

"You bring out a lot in him," Hollis responded tightly.

"Hol," Gibbs said, his eyes fixed carefully on Shepard's cut – it had stopped bleeding. "You grab me some rubbin' alcohol from the laundry room?"

She set her teeth, and complied – from what she could figure, the Director had gotten herself in a bad spot with a lover, and had come to her old partner to have it taken care of – that was by no means out of the ordinary, except the old partner was her jilted lover, and the Director didn't seem to give damn that she was directly challenging his girlfriend.

Gibbs was rubbing his thumbs in circles on her temples when she returned, and handed him the alcohol; he didn't thank her. He didn't get thanks from the Director, when he doused gauze in alcohol and rubbed her injury clean. She hissed at him like a snake, and Hollis liked the comparison.

"You dump 'im at his house?"

"At his mother's," the redhead spat. "Thought she'd like to see what she raised."

Gibbs swore again, roughly, and his eyes—glinted, was that admiration in them? Hollis held her tongue, but narrowed her eyes, and he switched from alcohol to Neosporin, slowly cleaning up the cut.

"He's a beater," the Director said grimly. "Scare 'im into not pressing charges."

"C'mon, Jen, you'd win," Gibbs said skeptically. He nodded at her head. "Man takes a swing at a woman with a driver, he doesn't walk."

"Ah, but a woman who takes a swing at a man?"

"S' different, Jenny."

She closed her lips grimly, bitterly.

"I don't care," she ground out. "Another infraction and I'm out of the office, and after I've been vilified in the public court for abuse of power, I won't win a case as a victim."

"Not used to playing the victim, are you?" Hollis asked.

Gibbs hands partly obscured Shepard's face, but her gaze was cool, and guarded.

"This is not an act, Colonel Mann."

Hollis, to her consternation felt chastised—but the other woman was right; much as she resented Jenny Shepard, being physically assaulted by a lover you—presumably—trusted was no laughing matter, no time to gain an upper hand. Hollis lowered her chin demurely, but kept her eyes steely.

"He's a coward. Pressure him, and he'll back off," Shepard said. "It got ugly when I confronted him about that fucked up CIA deal, for Benoit."

A dark look flitted across Gibbs' face.

"Pressure him, Jethro," she said sharply. "Don't kill him."

"With my bare hands," he threatened rabidly.

"This isn't Paris," she said wryly, and then, for some reason, some inside joke, he smirked, and she laughed quietly, and tilted her head back.

Hollis watched.

She watched his knees knock against the redheads as he patched her up; watched him push back her hair gently, into specific places—as if he knew where each strand was to lay—as he bandaged up the cut on her temple; she watched his fingertips linger near her brow, and then graze her cheek as he drew his hands away; she watched his eyes drift to her lips, down her body, and then on the first aid kit, where he packed things up, knuckles white and tense, knees still pressing against hers.

Every movement, ever gesture, ever silent look between them was historic and nostalgic and heavy; their interaction, strained though it was by amphibians and distrust and farewell letters, was fluid, fine-tuned, and familiar; they knew each other: mind, body, and soul – that much was palpable, tangible – she could taste it, and though it might be sweet, comforting, to him and her – to Hollis it was sour.

She thought of the tape in the basement, with the little girl's high-pitched singing, giggles, and piano recorded on it, of the woman's voice – and of the formidable woman sitting in front of her, owning this territory like it had always belong to her, like it had been lent to a blonde for a mere moment – and reclaimed in a bloody instant—

Hollis smirked, a corner of her mouth turning up grimly; she had been wary of this woman from her first day at NCIS, from the first moment she sensed the Director had a passed with Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and for weeks she had competed with that, walked in that shadow – and then she'd found out there was a darker shadow, the one of wife, and child, and death – and she stood, watching Gibbs sit on the couch with _Jen,_ and she thought –

_all the red highlights in the world wouldn't make me her, and wouldn't make him mine. _

And she thought, it was ironic that one of his marriages had ended with the swing of a golf club, because the swing of a golf club was the executioner's axe on this one.

And she thought—

_I'm done with him; I'm outta here. _

Weeks later, she was a tropical announcement in a black and white newspaper.

* * *

_hollis never owed gibbs an apology; he owed her one, and he deserved her leaving._

_-alexandra_

_story #191_

_[oooh, but who is it intimated that jenny was sleeping with/in a relationship with?]_


End file.
